OpenMediaVault VS SFTPGo

You might want to consider the previously mentioned MergerFS and SnapRAID, or MDADM and LVM for your setup. OpenMediaVault [https://www.openmediavault.org/ is a solid choice in this regard. Additionally, if you're planning to run something like Proxmox, you could look into deploying Starwind CVM on top of it. Pretty much like in this guide: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library/starwind-virtual-san-vsan-configuration-guide-for-proxmox-vsan-deployed-as-a-controller-virtual-machine-cvm/ .

You would better to install OMV instead. It's a ready to use fileserver solution with web interface.

So I'm working on a similar setup with an ancient desktop my in-laws were getting rid of. I installed OpenMediaVault directly to the hard drive (it's so old that I assume it wouldn't work too well as a hypervisor), with a 4TB external HDD attached. OMV supports Docker by means of a plug-in and I'm running a Jellyfin container with no issues at all. I'm still manually downloading everything to the HDD but *arr containers are my next step, as well as setting up a gluetun container to route all that through a VPN.

That is possible (it's automated to a certain extent). It also depends on the NAS OS. Unraid, for example, can work with drives of different sizes while using the largest one for parity. TrueNAS uses ZFS so you won't be able to just add a drive to your RAIDZ and expand it. There's also openmediavault: https://www.openmediavault.org/ that uses Linux Software RAID and you can add a new drive there but you can't combine drives of different sizes. And there's also Starwinds NAS that supports both Linux Software RAID and ZFS: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/san-and-nas. Plus, I would avoid SMR drives in RAID: https://nascompares.com/answer/list-of-wd-cmr-and-smr-hard-drives-hdd/

I'd put it like that: if you have a spare PC, then it's definitely worth trying. I would also look into openmediavault (minimal RAM needs): https://www.openmediavault.org/ and Starwinds NAS (supports both ZFS and Linux software RAID): https://www.starwindsoftware.com/san-and-nas

Your current PC looks very decent for a lab. Proxmox on it, then one Linux VM with Docker, another VM for NAS with something lite and easy like openmediavault: https://www.openmediavault.org/ or Starwinds NAS: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/san-and-nas and Plex separately. And other stuff in VMs or containers.

EDIT: Thanks for the recommendations from all of you!! I've chose to use the below: - Files: sftpgo - Calendar: baikal - Notes: memos (But beware, it sends opt-out telemetry) - Network folder: webdav on sftpgo

Give a try to SFTPGo

> Even these projects have gotten to a level of sophistication that it would implode without big tech support.

The worst thing is that all this FAANG or VC backed companies make a lot of people believe that they are the only viable way.

> Why do you think you don't see any interesting oss tech from hobbyists is these days?

Actually not true, just an example, https://github.com/drakkan/sftpgo. But there are plenty of them.

This is possible using SFTPGo. The default Windows installer register SFTPGo as a Windows service. You can download the portable version and run it manually or install SFTPGo from the Scoop packages. You can use the built-in SFTPGo virtual permissions to only allow uploads. SFTPGo uses virtual users, no system users are required.

I suggest contacting your SFTP server vendor. I guess they have an auto blocking policy like this

Basically it's a file storage managed over HTTPS. Nextcloud is pretty heavy, that's the reason why I using just a single statically compiled cross-platform binary SFTPgo

Using SFTPGo you can easily configure read-only accounts. SFTPGo uses virtual users and virtual permissions. So you don't need to create system users for your SFTPGo users and you don't need to use chmod to make folders read-only (but the system user that SFTPGo runs as needs file system level permission to access the files/folders you want to share)

SFTPGo provides SFTP, FTP/S and HTTP/S so you can share the same files using different protocols and thus meet the different needs of your business partners. Allowed protocols can be enabled/disabled per-user

You could check out SFTPGo, it may meet your needs.